Gawking at Numbers
CBS Considers ‘Loyalty Index’ Over Pay for Page Views
With so many ways to track a writer’s popularity online, should that popularity be tied to a journalist’s or blogger’s pay? That is a question that’s come up quite a few times over the years, and last week I took Gawker Media to task for paying writers based on...continued...
Best Use of the Medium
5 Videoblogs That Do It Right
Lately, it seems everybody’s a video producer. From YouTube to BlogTV to Seesmic –- it’s as if everyone’s doing something with a videocamera. Last year, I wondered if the transition from blogger to video producer and host might not be the best route for everyone. It seemed that bloggers were...continued...
Digging Deeper
Anti-Piracy Dragnet Could Hurt ‘Fair Use’ of Copyrighted Video
All the lawsuits and rhetoric around people uploading copyrighted material on video-sharing sites such as YouTube make it seem like a black-and-white situation: either you’re shooting your own original video or stealing it from someone else. But what’s lost in that simple either-or interpretation is the more gray area...continued...
TiVo Nation
The New Etiquette for Our Time-Shifted Culture
Do you remember the old days back when we sat around and watched a sports event or TV show with people in real time with commercials? You might have even called up a friend far away to share your thoughts on what was happening in the game or who...continued...
Digging Deeper
When Will Google’s ‘Big Project’ YouTube Bring in Profits?
In its brief 22-month history, video-sharing site YouTube has become a cultural phenomenon. The Iraq War has been called the “YouTube War” because of the videos that are regularly uploaded by soldiers and insurgents. The upcoming U.S. presidential race has been called the “YouTube Election” with its own “YouTube...continued...
Digging Deeper
Traditional Media Evolves for Wildfire Coverage, But Hyper-Local Still Lacking
When people think of community or hyper-local neighborhood news, they typically think of bake sales, petty crime and development catfights. But when a disaster strikes, the stakes for community news are raised, and lightning-quick news updates online can save lives and help residents cope. That was the reality in...continued...
Cross-Platform Static
Bloggers Make Jump to TV Shows — But Should They?
It wasn’t that long ago that I was marveling over the fact that mainstream media was paying attention to blogs, particularly for culling public opinion on hot button political issues. I remember being shocked when CNN started featuring a segment quoting bloggers on “The Situation Room” — shocked and...continued...
Your Take Roundup
Internet Offers Unlimited Time for Presidential Debates
One of the complaints most people have about televised politics and debates is the prevalence of the sound bite. There’s never enough time for candidates to discuss issues in-depth or argue their point for more than a minute. Instead, we are stuck with the tyranny of zingers and one-liners,...continued...
EverythingTube
Online Video Sites Scratch Your Niche
In my post about online television a few weeks ago, I wrote about why I don’t enjoy watching television on the Internet. One of the reasons is that a big video-sharing site such as YouTube has thousands of different kinds of content jumbled together in one place, making it...continued...
Cheney Video Hunt
The Tangled State of Archived News Footage Online
A couple of weeks ago a video of Vice President Dick Cheney from 1994 came up on YouTube, with Cheney saying that invading Baghdad would invite a quagmire. I investigated this on my own and discovered that, while I could find it today via the C-SPAN archives, it wasn’t...continued...
Digital Job Shift
The Difficulty of Putting a Number on Journalism Jobs
My story on the shift of journalism jobs from traditional to new media has been causing a stir among media folks, who either see the same shift happening in front of them or think I’m being overly optimistic. Leading the charge against my story was author and blogger Nicholas...continued...
Digging Deeper
Traditional Journalism Job Cuts Countered by Digital Additions
If you follow the world of traditional journalism, you can’t help but notice the seemingly constant stream of layoffs and buyouts at news organizations. But media observers don’t often emphasize the flip side: As newspapers and broadcasters slice their senior-level workforce, they are also quietly building their digital and...continued...
TVShift
Is the Future of Television Online? Not Yet
Late last month the BBC announced that it would be offering up a large part of its television content free of charge on its website. And back in May, ABC announced it would stream some of its primetime shows in HD online for free. As networks begin to put...continued...
Habla Usted Ingles?
U.S. Media Fails to Deliver Spanish News Online
I’m happy to introduce a new associate editor for MediaShift, Jennifer Woodard Maderazo, who will be writing a weekly blog post here and doing research and reporting as well. She is a San Francisco-based writer, blogger and marketer, who covers Latino marketing at Latin-Know.com and Latino cultural issues at...continued...
Digging Deeper
’Frienemy’ Google Not a Threat (Yet) to Traditional Ad Sales
If you browse through Google’s job openings, the dozens of advertising sales positions — from account manager of Print Ads in Chicago to account manager of Google Television in New York — you’d think Google was a major media conglomerate that owned TV stations and newspapers. Instead, Google has...continued...
The Net Effect in Politics
Online Presidential Debate Distances the Candidates
The handshake at the beginning. The sideways glances and furious note-taking. The occasional interruption. The partisan cheering. These are the hallmarks of presidential debates of years past. Yet, Yahoo, Slate and the Huffington Post believe that having the candidates in distant locations hooked up virtually online will make for...continued...
Digging Deeper
Your Guide to Presidential Campaign Videos Online
From time to time, I’ll give an overview of one broad MediaShift topic, annotated with online resources and plenty of tips. The idea is to help you understand the topic, learn the jargon, and take action. I’ve already covered blogging, citizen journalism, the digital divide and various other topics....continued...
Digging Deeper
Will Video Kill the Audio Podcasting Star? Not Exactly
All the media heat these days is around online video and the YouTube phenomenon. Presidential candidates are sparring through YouTube. Google pays a bundle to buy YouTube, and then Viacom sues for $1 billion. It all makes the online audio phenomenon of podcasting feel like yesterday’s news. Audio fans,...continued...
March Madness on Demand
The Quirks, Dunks and Crashes of Live Streaming Hoops on CBS Sportsline
The camera pans into the crowd lazily, catching the sight of the painted faces of college basketball fanatics. It then cuts jerkily to cheerleaders getting ready to do a routine. The audio is off, and then suddenly comes to life. The scene cuts to the tunnel below the stadium...continued...
We Want Video
Viacom, YouTube Legal Tiff Irrelevant in End
Judging by the sturm und drang roiling the blogosphere and media circles, you’d think that Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against Google’s YouTube is the epic confrontation of old media vs. new, of suits vs. hipsters, of DRM vs. free love, of greed vs. good. It may well be all...continued...
Open or Closed?
Viacom’s YouTube Conundrum
The heavyweights of the media world are lining up in opposition to YouTube, and supporting Viacom’s recent removal of all its clips from the video-sharing service. That removal followed a back-and-forth last fall when Viacom initially asked for clips to be removed, and then went into negotiations with YouTube....continued...
Wild Guerrilla Marketing
Bomb Scare Tactics in War for Our Attention
For every tactic the world of marketing and advertising dreams up, we have a counter-technology that will block their attempts to reach us. We zap TV ads with the aid of digital video recorders such as TiVo. We subscribe to satellite radio or listen to podcasts to skip radio...continued...
Digging Deeper
Talent Agencies Evolve to Show Clients the Digital Money
Everything about the Ask a Ninja videoblog phenomenon smacks of a new form of entertainment. Two guys in Los Angeles produce a series of simple, low cost video clips where a ninja character answers profound and ridiculous questions. The comedic series gets popular as a video podcast through iTunes,...continued...
Digging Deeper
YouTube Explains the Mystery of Home Page Picks
Mark Day, a friend of mine in the San Francisco Bay Area, has been trying to break into stand-up comedy for the past year. Recently, he got a big break by having one of his brief video comic bits — The Smiley Intervention — featured on the front page...continued...
PoliticalShift
Live Blogging the U.S. Mid-Term Elections
Today is election day in the United States, so despite my overall bad feelings about politics at the moment, I’m going back to my roots as a political junkie and watching the results as they come in around the country today. I’ll be watching on TV and online at...continued...
The Word
Fake Anchor Colbert Gives Best Take on YouTube Takedowns
The last week has been a surreal one for fans of fake news. TV shows such as Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” have had huge boosts in their popularity thanks to online communities, who share video clips and summaries from each show. But the corporate...continued...
Open Letter
Stephen Colbert: Don’t Love and Leave YouTube
An Open Letter to Stephen Colbert, star of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” We in the Colbert Nation are sickened by the recent news that heavy-handed trial lawyers at Viacom, representing Comedy Central, have asked YouTube to force its users to remove video clips from “The Colbert Report,” “The...continued...
Digging Deeper
Brian Ross: Foley Story a Watershed for ABC News on the Web
The website navigation on each of the top U.S. broadcaster sites is the same litany of typical news categories: U.S., World, Politics, Business, Health, Science, etc. But at ABCNews.com, the list is slightly different: U.S., International, Investigative — that’s right, the Investigative category lands in the No. 3 slot...continued...
Your Take Roundup
Watching Shows on Computers Supplements Your TV Viewing
Let’s be clear about one thing. Watching TV shows and movies on computer screens — as they exist today — will not replace watching TV and movies on much bigger screens, in much more comfortable environs. Of course there are computers that can function as TV sets, and TV...continued...
Sleeping With the Enemy
NBC, YouTube Cross-Promotion Off to Crass Start
When I talked to my sister yesterday, she said she had been thinking of me when she saw a report on “NBC Nightly News” about the video-sharing service, YouTube. “I thought that story might interest you, because of what you write about,” she said. OK, true enough, and I...continued...
Digging Deeper
Blogger-Anchor Brian Williams Defends Nightly Newscasts
After countless months of blissful ignorance, I finally broke down and watched the “NBC Nightly News.” OK, so it was at 10:30 pm and it was really a netcast online. I still watched what looked like the evening news. It harked back to a time, perhaps 10 years ago,...continued...
Digging Deeper
Big Media Slowly Giving the Audience Some Control
Have you ever watched your local TV news broadcast and railed against the stream of homicides, car crashes and fires? What if you could have a say in what the station was reporting each day? John Schiumo has made that dream a reality for New Yorkers who watch the...continued...
Open Source Reporting
Designing an On-Demand TV Service That Beats DVDs
We are a culture that thrives on immediate satisfaction. We want what we want when we want it. So the idea that we can order any TV show or movie we want — for a small fee or with advertising — appeals to us immensely. Slowly, but surely, the...continued...
Screen Babies
What Do Kids Lose, Gain from Screen Time?
It’s easy to get angry and self-righteous when hearing the results of a study like the recent one from the Kaiser Family Foundation about young kids’ media usage. The facts come spewing off your tongue as if you’re a preacher in a room full of sinners: 61% of babies...continued...
Your Take Roundup
YouTube Just the Start for Video Sharing
It’s easy to lose yourself in all the video at YouTube. You watch one music video, which leads to a spoof video, which leads to a stupid pet trick, which leads…who knows where. Before you know it, it’s time to leave work. Free time just evaporates when you’re immersed...continued...
Cool Factor
Slingbox Lets You Place-Shift Your TV
With some gadgets, there’s a “wow” factor that you can milk with each person you encounter. But when the “wow”s wear off, you’re sitting there with a device that doesn’t always have an everyday purpose. That’s my feeling with the Slingbox, a cool device that lets you watch your...continued...
Digging Deeper
TV-B-Gone Device Shuts Public TVs Down
The last time I was in an aiport, I was held hostage by the ubiquitous CNN Airport Network monitors that wouldn’t shut up. I ranted about the experience, and then I heard from a former CNN guy, William Jeakle, who explained that these TVs made too much money for...continued...
Digging Deeper
YouTube CEO Hails ‘Birth of a New Clip Culture’
There is a simple truth about video-sharing site YouTube, and an enigma. The simple truth is that this web startup has bottled up the viral video idea and made it eminently drinkable by anyone — you go to the site, find the video clip you want to watch, and,...continued...
Insider’s Take
Why Public TVs Won’t Go Away
You never know where a rant might lead you. Last Monday, I was ranting and raving about the annoying CNN Airport Network as well as other “place-based media” — TVs that you can’t avoid in elevators or checkout lines or airplane gates. I was happy to see that many...continued...
CNN Everywhere
Do We Need TV in Public Spaces?
I spent the past week on a work vacation of sorts in Austin, Texas, which is a good thing. But one annoying thing was when I was stuck in an airport, and couldn’t tune out the ubiquitous TV monitors blaring the CNN Airport Network. As a longtime news junkie,...continued...
Dear CBS Sportsline
Close Down Live Streams of Tourney for Our Own Good
Open Letter to CBS Sportsline Dear Keepers of the March Madness Tournament Flame, We the college basketball-loving public appreciate all you’ve done for us. You offer satellite packages with all the games in the men’s college basketball tournament. We can go to Las Vegas and watch and bet on...continued...
Digging Deeper
TV Critics Eye Online Content Reviews
Anyone who has spent an afternoon at a site such as iFilm Viral Video or YouTube can attest to how addictive online video can be. Some of it’s funny, some of it’s stupid, some of it’s classic. But the problem is finding the good stuff, as the most popular...continued...
Your Take Roundup
Giving Props to Last-Place Finishers at Olympics
As we are knee-deep in the Winter Olympics games, I wondered how you were experiencing the Olympics online, and asked you to tell me about some quirky sites you liked. The Games so far have been a bit quirky, from the marshmallow-headed mascots Neve and Gliz (pictured here) to...continued...
Citizen Power?
CBS, Wisconsin Newspaper Let Audience Vote
Two recent announcements made me wonder if the mainstream media was really starting to “get” citizen journalism, and starting to allow the former audience into the news process. The Wisconsin State Journal newspaper, run out of the state capital of Madison, decided to let its web visitors vote on...continued...
Super Skip
DVRs Are MVPs for Super Bowl Watchers
Everything is big about the Super Bowl. Advertisements cost $2.6 million for 30 seconds. The average audience was estimated at 90.7 million viewers. And a few bad calls by the referees were magnified to epic proportions. While network executives are clinging to the idea that they are still in...continued...
